It's good to see support this amazing song. It is overplayed, which is never a good thing, and I'll admit that I used to consider it overrated. Then I seriously sat down to learn the song, and realized how well constructed it is. The production is great, and the arrangement is amazing. It's actually a great song to play on keyboards. If anything, I feel a little sorry for the guitarist, who has to keep up the tension for several minutes while basically doing the same thing over and over. In a live setting, you usually can't add a second and third guitar along the way, but with keys, I can do the whole song justice.
My wife is one of those who listens to songs and basically only cares about the words and vocals. She considers this an okay song, but a bit "boring and repetitive". But she considers a lot my music boring and repetitive, and that blows my mind, considering some of the stuff she listens to. If she says a song is repetitive, I tell her to listen to parts that aren't repeating. How the guitar is soloing underneath the whole time, or how the keyboards come in the partway through and help with the buildup, or how the bass and drum fills are all over the place, etc. She doesn't care. The "song" is boring if the words and/or vocals don't do anything amazing. Sometimes that's not the point.
My comparison to sex hit me just today when I thought about how the song builds slowly for so long, then kicks into high gear, and then again, and then actually has a catharsis. It's actually a valid comparison IMO. Most songs don't do that; you get a couple verses, a solo, then another verse or chorus. This song is a journey, an experience, and it goes through a natural progression.